Good Old Boat Issue 142: Jan/Feb 2022

calls the “February highs.” The month is mostly blue skies. The air is cold and dry. It’s rarely windy, and if there is any wind, the Bluffs escarpment helps protect the marina. Dave’s famous parties The marina liveaboard team (L to R) Cory, Craig, Tyrone, Al, and Dave, help keep the rink in skating shape, right. Photo by Colin Slivinskiauld. Dave pursues the puck and Spirit, who is the official puck chaser, below right. Photo by Adam Crawford.

start in the afternoon and carry on throughout the evening. No one goes hungry either. Dave has two outdoor vats on the go. One usually contains fresh-cut fries, and the other has mussels steaming in butter, garlic, and sea salt. And in case someone’s had one too many beers, there are plenty of berths on Ocean Spirit to accommodate his guests. On occasion, folks go ice fishing nearby. At the end of the day, Dave and his friends take the catch to the boat and carry on with an old-fashioned fish fry on the ice. In 2020, during the first winter of the pandemic, Dave says the rink took on a whole newmeaning. “People would say, ‘You have no idea howmuch we appreciate this. Just to get us out here.’ Hockey is closed down. We’re all hockey players, and just to come down here and play on this pristine ice and shoot on these nets and just laugh, be in the fresh air. You could just feel the emotion in this. They were so appreciative.” The season lasts as long as the ice. Four years ago, Dave says, it was so cold, the rink was skateable by November, and it stayed that way until just before April. In 2021, the rink lasted till the first week of March. “The sun is the beast in March,” Dave says. “You have to skate in the morning. Not noon.” One day, they skated in the morning, “and by 4 o’ clock the ice was done. The ice was over. So I started peeling off the lights. The next day it’s slush, and by day three it’s on the move. The marina is alive, it’s a body of water that has a lot of energy in it.” But this time of year? There aren’t enough hours in the day for all the skating Dave and his fellow sailors and hockey players want to do.

The Scarborough Bluffs on Lake Ontario, where Dave’s boat rests currently, served as Deborah Kelso’s childhood playground. These days, Deb can be found sailing Lake Simcoe on her beloved Grampian 2-34 , Panacea.

“When you get out there on a full moon? I’ll literally set my alarm for two in the morning on a Saturday or a Sunday. Put the music on, and just get out there, it’s like minus 15 or 20, and you stare at this shining glossiness, and it just can’t get better.”

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January/February 2022

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